Set weekly goals if you really want to reach your long term goals
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Setting weekly goals is the way forward to reaching your long term goals in life.
If you’re not setting your weekly goals, then you’re missing on your potential, or more likely- you keep forgetting about your goals, and hence not reaching them.
Because I am sure it’s not only me who set new year goals or big long term goals feeling highly optimistic that I will make it this time, only to forget about it in a few days.
If you’re having a hard time seeing success with reaching your goals, you only need a little change of strategy. That is- you need to start setting weekly goals for your long term goals or yearly goals or whatever they are.
And in this post I am going to share how to exactly set your weekly goals, my weekly goal setting process and also some weekly goals ideas you can start setting for yourself.
But first,
Why Set weekly goals?
1. Weekly goals are manageable
The reason why our new year’s resolution and new year goals aren’t achieved and forgotten is because they are big goals that are somewhat vague.
For example, most of our goals sounds somewhat like this-‘This year my goal is to start eating healthy’, ‘this year my goal is to lose weight’. ‘This year my goal is to get success with YouTube etc etc.’
Just setting these big goals is not enough.
For all these big goals you need to then ask yourself, ‘How can I incorporate them into my life daily and weekly?’
And here is where weekly goals come in.
Weekly goals helps you break down your big goals into achievable action steps you can take everyday for a week.
For example, the big goal of eating healthy can be broken down into a weekly goal of not eating any takeaway food and cooking my own meals for 7 days.
A week is just 7 days, but what you can achieve and accumulate in each passing week will be huge. So don’t underestimate the power of setting weekly goals
2. Weekly goals help in setting SMART Goals
90% of people set goals that are vague and that is why we don’t ever reach them.
To reach your goals, you need to first set the right goals, that is, you need to set SMART goals.
SMART goals are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, relevant and Time bound.
When we set weekly goals, we automatically set SMART Goals. We cannot be vague in our weekly goals.
For example a person who just says ‘This year my goal is to start a YouTube channel and be a successful Youtuber’ won’t go so far.
But a person who goes a little further and also sets a weekly goal- ‘To publish two new videos every week Monday and Thursday’ is setting a SMART Goal which he/she will be more likely to achieve.
Thus by setting weekly goals we are forced to ask ourselves, ‘What do I need to do every week to reach this main goal?’.
This removes the error of going vague with our goals and helps us set SMART goals.
3. Setting weekly goals reduces procrastination
Much of procrastination happens because of lack of decision and clear cut strategy on what needs to be done.
Setting weekly goals that are SMART goals helps in reducing procrastination, getting that work done and in getting closer to our main goals because:
- first of all, It’s just 7 days
- Because you have clearly laid out what action steps you need to take for the week.
Here’s more on how to stop being a procrastinator.
4. Weekly goal helps you live intentionally
Without weekly goals it becomes difficult and almost impossible to reach the long term goals.
Weekly goals are achievable and by setting even small weekly goals that you’ll be able to achieve boosts your self confidence and increases your enthusiasm.
You become much more enthusiastic about getting reaching your goals, and you start upgrading on your life.
Setting weekly goals helps you live more intentionally as you move about your day aligned to your main life goals.
Now lets move on to how to set weekly goals
How to set weekly goals
1.Define your main life goals, yearly goals and monthly goals
The first task is to define and reflect on your bigger goals.
What are your main life goals? What would you like to achieve in a year?
There are four main areas of life to focus on- Health, Relationship, Self and Career.
What do you want most to focus on? Is it personal growth? Relationships? Business? Better habits?
Take your time to reflect on it and much better if you write them down.
2.Identify your SMART weekly goals
Once you’re clear on your main life goals, its time to ask,
“How can I break it down to something that can be done every week so that I can get closer to my main goals?”
For example if one of your yearly goal is to ‘lose weight this year’, then a weekly smart goal would be to workout 5 days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturdays) every week at 7am.
Whatever your main goals are, identify what specific action steps you need to take every week, and set it as your weekly goal.
Here are 20 personal smart goals example you can also set for yourself
3. Eliminate the unimportant
While setting your weekly goals, it’s important to not set a whole lot of weekly goals but only keep it to a few.
I would say 5 is the maximum number of weekly goals you must have.
Weekly goals that are more than 5 again becomes unmanageable and unachievable.
Eliminate all unimportant tasks and simply ask yourself,
‘What is the most important task/goals for this week?’ And only work on that.
If you’re a newbie to goal setting, set one weekly goal and achieve it.
4. Write down your goals for each week
Next, write down your goals for each week on paper or in some note taking app, which ever you prefer.
Personally I feel writing on paper and keeping it in front of you is much more powerful.
Anyway, write down your weekly goals on Monday or on a Sunday when you prepare for the week ahead.
Writing down is important because it makes you want to follow through and stick with it.
P.S here are 12 things to do on Sunday for a good week ahead.
5. Schedule your weekly goals
Once you’ve written down your weekly goals that are not more than 5, its time to schedule them through the week.
Based on your weekly goals, set out what is it that you must do each day of the week?
Here is a weekly goals template you can copy
Identify not more than 3 daily action steps and plan them through your day.
My weekly goal setting process
Every year at the beginning of the year I take out time to write about my yearly goals and focus.
I then break the year into 4 quarters and set 2-3 main important goals I’d like to focus on for each quarter.
Based on these quarterly goals, I then make my monthly goals at the start of every month. (Here are 12 things to do at the start of every month)
This again further gets broken down into weekly goals and then to daily to-dos.
My weekly goal setting process takes less than 10 minutes time, and it goes like this:
- I write down my goals for the week every Monday morning in a small paper. I set not more than 5 goals a week that are actionable and specific.
- I then schedule each of these goals with actionable steps for when I plan to do them through the week.
Thus this weekly goal transforms to 1-2 daily goals for each day of the week and I come to know exactly what 1-2 things I want to get done in my day. - This piece of paper I keep it in front of me in my desk, and check it off after each goal gets achieved.
- It’s a great simple way that helps me to keep moving forward and lets me know that I am in the right direction.
- At the end of the week, if some of it didn’t get done, I make space for flexibility, review what went wrong and schedule it for the next week again.
Goals for the week: 50+ Weekly goals Ideas
- Waking up at 6 am
- Meditate for 10 minutes
- Read for 30 minutes after waking up
- Learn one new thing every day for a week
- Make bed every morning
- Drink 2 litres water everyday
- No meat for a week
- Read one book a week
- Stretch for 10 minutes everyday
- No working after 6 pm
- Give evening time only for family
- Water plants everyday
- Don’t drink coffee first thing in the morning
- No smoking/ smoking only once everyday
- No alcohol/ alcohol only twice a week
- Subscribe to an online course
- Check emails only 3 times a day
- Don’t leave anything until last minute
- Eat fruits in the morning
- Spend less than 50 dollar a week
- Track every expense for a week
- No online shopping for a week
- Declutter a room this week
- Organise closet this week
- Only check social media once a day
- Finish one chapter of book everyday
- Read one good blog post every day
- Listen to one podcast episode everyday
- Following a morning routine for this week
- Write in a journal everyday
- Go for a walk every evening
- Finish an online course
- Finish a portion of your syllabus
- Follow a night routine
- No phone 1 hour after waking up
- No phone 1 hour before sleeping
- No shopping for a week
- Sleeping before 11pm
- No ordering food online for a week
- Cook your own meals
- No single use plastic
- Exercise 5 days a week
- Sleep 7-8 hours
- Post 2 youtube videos every week
- Publish 2 blog post every week
- Don’t check social media
- Pray everyday
- Don’t complain
- Call your loved ones at least twice a week
- Don’t leave any unwashed dishes before sleeping
- Say No to what you don’t want to do
- Learn a new recipe
- Enjoy a do nothing time
So this was about weekly goals ideas. Here are also some good monthly goals ideas for all areas of life
Wrapping Up: How to set goals for the week
Save for later 🙂
Go slow on your goals and don’t be too impatient to achieve them. Setting weekly goals is something that will help you reach your main goals in life, but without it your life goals and yearly goals could be left hanging.
You can even keep just one goal a week and work on achieving it. Something is better than nothing. Remember, little by little, a little becomes a lot.
I hope this post helped you to know how to set goals for the week in a plain and easy way. To repeat once again they are:
- Define your main goals, yearly goals and monthly goals
- Identify your SMART weekly goals
- Eliminate the unimportant
- Write down your goals for each week
- Schedule your weekly goals
Lastly, don’t forget to have fun going forward and reaching your goals!
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